Master Plan meets Sterling community

"Kickoff Community Workshop" offers chance to change city structure

Community members prepare to mark the places in Sterling that they liked and wanted to change on giant maps. (David Martinez/Journal-Advocate)

STERLING -- The scene in Sterling Public Library's community room was fit for an elementary school classroom Thursday evening. A cacophony of chatter muffled squeaks from multicolored sharpies as people scribbled lines and circles on jumbo-sized maps of Sterling.

But these were not children, and this was not playtime. It was a collaborative effort between two to three dozen adult Sterling community members to reshape the city the way they want to see it - charting the areas they think should stay, change or disappear - and explain why.

This was just one of three interactive exercises presented at the Kickoff Community Workshop for Sterling's Master Plan update. Participants also had the chance to share what they wanted to see in Sterling 10 years from now and show where they walk, bike, drive and take the bus in the city. The workshop was open for anyone to attend.

"I think it went really well," said city council member Dan Torres. "It was engaging. And at least they made it available to anyone. In the past they've come to city council and the (Sterling Planning Commission), but anybody could've walked in today to listen and give their opinions."

Members of McCool Development Solutions organized the workshop to "explain more about the purpose of the Master Plan Update, describe the process, (show) how you can be involved, and highlight what has already been done," according to the group's website.

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They then gave others the opportunity to give their opinions.

Carrie McCool, the head of McCool Development, shared the steps to improving the city's master plan, which hasn't been updated since 1995. She said residents had to build off previous planning efforts and define what their plan needs to be accomplished, then define the conditions of their plan understand the city's market. They could then "paint a vision of the future" and match the city's resources with its circumstances and conditions.

Bill CUnningham explains a citizen planner visioning exercise at the Kickoff Community Workshop for Sterling's Master Plan update Thursday. Participants wrote down what they wanted to see in Sterling's future and placed them on the board. (David Martinez/Journal-Advocate)

McCool predicts the city will finish the process - from information gathering to implementation - by between February and April of next year.

"Keep up with this, because we're moving pretty fast," she said.

John Seyer, McCool's traffic consultant, told the group he had already started collecting information on the city's roadways, highways, traffic and crash history statistics.

He also said he had a good handle on two of the most requested projects: creating an "S-curve" connecting Highway 6 and Highway 14, and transforming Third and Fourth Streets into two-way streets.

Bill Cunningham, of Ricker Cunningham, focused on market analysis on the region. He said that knowing the city's demographics keeps the update "grounded in market and economic reality," sets the stage for plan implementation and provides a market-driven story for potential businesses and investors.

"(Planning) used to all be about attracting jobs," Cunningham told the group. "Today economic development is all about community development, having a cool downtown... housing."

He said he's looked at Sterling's trade area, including the six surrounding counties (including southwest Nebraska), and focused on how their cities have expanded. The group saw myriad maps with age, wealth and ethnicity statistics to show where the city should focus its market centers and give a "portrait of your community."

What they had found, Cunningham said, was that Sterling and northeast Colorado tended to have a lower average income than the state level and that Sterling had a noticeably younger population than the rest of the region, with more renters and smaller household sizes.

"You may not consider (Sterling) a typical college town," he said, "But it absolutely has the character of a college town."

During the activities, some of the three groups didn't even touch those topics; the focus instead wandered to recreation, beautification and entertainment. One group said the city should focus on bike paths, trails by the South Platte River and a clearer route to North Sterling Reservoir.

They also said more entertainment - like restaurants closer to downtown and more festivals - would be a huge part of attracting outside people to the community and keeping residents home on the weekends.

But for some participants, the suggestions will be taken with a grain of salt.

Planning commission member Rafael Flores, along with others, said he thought more communities should have been represented at the meeting.

Indeed, out of the dozen people who attended the meeting, many worked closely with the city already.

"I was disappointed; more people should be involved," Flores said. "It's very important to participate in something like this."

Torres agreed, adding that he liked the format, but not so much what McCool was doing with their workshop. The focus was placed more on what people wanted to do with the city, he said, than how they can make it happen.

He acknowledged that McCool could bring that question up later, but he said if they don't, he will.

"The nucleus of all this is the how," he said. "If you don't have that, it's not going to happen."

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